Hydrocodone News and Research

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Bariatric surgical patients may be vulnerable to opioid dependence

Nearly 9 percent of bariatric surgical patients--or about one in 12--who did not take opioid pain medications until their weight-loss operation, or the month before it, report that they are still using prescription opioids one year postoperatively, according to new research findings.

24 Oct 2017

Opioid-free anesthesia reduces postoperative nausea, study finds

Opioid-free general anesthesia is safe, effective and dramatically decreases postoperative nausea, according to a single-center study of more than 1,000 patients being presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY 2017 annual meeting.

24 Oct 2017

New online tool offers opioid prescribing recommendations after surgery

How many prescription pain pills should a patient receive after breast cancer surgery? Or a hernia repair? Or a gallbladder removal?

16 Oct 2017

Researchers use zebrafish animal model to explore drug-seeking behavior

As the opioid crisis escalates, the science behind addiction remains poorly understood. To address this need, researchers at University of Utah Health devised a system that allowed zebrafish, a small tropical fish, to self-administer doses of hydrocodone, an opioid commonly prescribed to people for pain.

26 Aug 2017

FDA evaluating prescription opioid medications approved to treat cough in children

The United States Food and Drugs Administration (US FDA) says that parents need to be aware of the information regarding treatment of symptoms of cough and cold in their children in order to ensure their health and safety.

22 Aug 2017

Dying at home in an opioid crisis: Hospices grapple with stolen meds

Nothing seemed to help the patient — and hospice staff didn't know why. They sent home more painkillers for weeks. But the elderly woman, who had severe dementia and incurable breast cancer, kept calling out in pain.

22 Aug 2017

Study finds sevenfold rise in prescription opioid use among fatally injured drivers

The percentage of fatally injured drivers who tested positive for prescription opioids rose sevenfold from 1 percent in 1995 to over 7 percent in 2015, according to a new study at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. The findings appear online in the American Journal of Public Health.

26 Jul 2017

Managing stress, improving pain coping strategies may minimize need for opioids after surgery

Helping patients to better manage stress and improve coping strategies related to pain may minimize the need for opioids following ankle fracture surgery, according to new research appearing in the July 2017 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

6 Jul 2017

Study finds substantial use of opioids among older rheumatoid arthritis patients

A new analysis indicates that the use of opioid pain medications in older US rheumatoid arthritis patients peaked in 2010 and is now declining slightly. By 2014, 41% of rheumatoid arthritis patients were regular opioid users.

21 Jun 2017

Opioid use gradually increases few years after bariatric surgery, study shows

While the proportion of adults with severe obesity using prescription opioids initially declines in the months after bariatric surgery, it increases within a matter of years, eventually surpassing pre-surgery rates of patients using the potentially addictive pain medications, according to new research from a National Institutes of Health -funded multicenter study led by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

6 Jun 2017

Opioid prescription for minor injuries increases risk of continued use and addiction

Overprescribing of opioid medications for pain has contributed to a record-high number of drug-related deaths in the United States in recent years.

18 May 2017

Study unravels mysteries behind cause of acute liver failure

Twenty years ago, the federal government funded the study of a condition quietly killing hundreds of Americans a year - acute liver failure, or ALF. Growing evidence had linked ALF to overdoses of acetaminophen, the popular over-the-counter pain medication many viewed as harmless at the time.

29 Mar 2017

Poison control centers receive one call every 45 minutes about pediatric exposure to opioids

A new study published online today by Pediatrics and conducted by the Center for Injury Research and Policy and the Central Ohio Poison Center at Nationwide Children's Hospital found that there were more than 188,000 calls to US Poison Control Centers for pediatric exposure to opioids from January 2000 through December 2015, averaging 32 calls a day or one every 45 minutes.

20 Mar 2017

Researchers developing opioid vaccines to help prevent overdose fatalities

In 2014, the number of deaths from opioid overdoses in the U.S. jumped to its highest level on record. The spike brought national attention to the epidemic and the awareness that new interventions are needed.

7 Dec 2016

UAB physician calls for better education, legislation to help patients with opioid abuse

The U.S. opioid epidemic has evolved so much in the last four years that current federal policy responses risk diminishing returns in saving human lives, according to a new peer-reviewed perspective by University of Alabama at Birmingham Associate Professor of Preventive medicine Stefan Kertesz, M.D. His perspective was published online in the addiction journal Substance Abuse.

24 Nov 2016

New vaccine shows potential to decrease risk of fatal opioid overdose

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have developed a vaccine that blocks the pain-numbing effects of the opioid drugs oxycodone and hydrocodone in animal models.

23 Nov 2016

Wayne State receives NIH grant to study use of opioid addiction drug to fight relapse in recovering addicts

A team led by Wayne State University School of Medicine researcher Mark Greenwald, Ph.D., will use a four-year, $2,279,723 competitively renewed grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health to explore whether the opioid addiction treatment medication buprenorphine can decrease the magnitude and/or duration of responses to stressors faced by recovering addicts.

15 Oct 2016

Buprenorphine implants could be effective option to treat adults with opioid dependence

While buprenorphine has long been used to treat adults with opioid dependence, its efficacy can be hindered by lack of adherence to daily, sublingual (beneath the tongue) doses of the medication.

19 Jul 2016

Programs to prevent prescription drug misuse may be underused, study reveals

Misuse of prescription pain medications remains a major public health problem -- but programs to prevent it may be underused, according to a study in the July issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

29 Jun 2016

Neos announces U.S. launch of Adzenys XR-ODT for ADHD

Neos Therapeutics, Inc., a pharmaceutical company with a late‐stage pipeline of innovative extended-release (XR) product candidates for the treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), today announced that Adzenys XR-ODT™ is in distribution channels and is now available to prescribe for patients with ADHD in the United States.

16 May 2016